I’ve been getting lots of requests lately to help people plan credit card churns.  I actually enjoy doing this, but I was finding it frustrating that I didn’t have all of the credit card bonus information I needed in one place.  So, I’ve spent much of the past 3 days compiling the best info I could find and putting it into a form that I hope will make life easier.

You can find the results on this page: Best credit card offers.  Soon, this page will appear on a new menu on my site so that it will be easy to find.  You’ll see that I’ve arranged the offers by bank with just the minimal information that is needed for planning a churn:

• Card name & sign-up link
• Bonus amount
• Minimum spend requirements
• Annual fee
• Notes (typically listing top card benefits)

Here’s an example of a couple of rows of data:

Many of the choices shown in these tables were informed by this Flyertalk thread and by Million Mile Secrets. 

I will do my best over time to keep this page up to date.  Please alert me if you discover any missing data or inaccuracies. 

Chase Planning

When I plan a credit card churn, I generally start with Chase.  Chase has the vast majority of great offers so I think that a good churn strategy starts with a good Chase strategy.  Chase doesn’t like to approve multiple cards at once, but they will approve a personal and a business card at once.  Under certain circumstances, I think it makes sense to do one of each.  In general, though, I like to spread out the applications roughly like this: apply for a personal card; wait three months; apply for a business card; wait 3 months; apply for personal card; etc.  Cards and opportunities will come and go so the particulars will change, but currently the table lists 4 business cards and 11 personal cards.  This means that you can cycle like this for more than two years before moving entirely to personal card signups.  For an example of how to sign-up for a business card, see my recent post How to sign-up for the Ink Bold.

Amex Planning

After picking a Chase card for each churn, I’ll look next for the best available Amex offer.  Lately the best of these have been targeted offers so I think it makes sense to plan just one non-targeted Amex sign-up.  This way, if a targeted offer shows up there’s still room to add another Amex.  The trend I’m seeing is that Amex business cards seem to have the best targeted offers.  So, if you’re going without a targeted offer, it may make sense to start with a personal card (to free up room for the hoped-for targeted business card offer).

Citi Planning

Citi doesn’t have as many great offers as Chase or Amex, but there are a few gems.  I would generally go for just one at a time except when doing the two browser trick to get 100K AA miles.  Some people suggest that it is necessary to wait 6 months between Citi applications.  I don’t know the validity of that, but just to be safe I would apply for cards from other banks (see below) every other churn.

Other Banks

I have all of the other banks lumped into a single chart.  Sure, you could do one of each depending on how aggressive you want to be with signups.  I’m fairly conservative about credit card churning, though, and don’t like to do more than 3 or 4 cards at a time total so I’d tend to pick just one from this group for each churn.

Credit Bureaus

Experienced credit card churners look carefully at which credit bureaus are used for the “hard pulls” that happen when applying for cards.  The idea is to try to spread out the pulls so that you never have too many hitting a single bureau.  You can read more about that approach here.  To me, this is like flossing: it’s one of those things I should do, but I don’t (actually I do floss every night, but the analogy works better if you pretend that I don’t).

My real life approach is simply to limit the total number of applications to 3 or 4 every three months, spread the applications across banks, and hope for the best.  I know many people do 6 to 8 cards every 3 months.  In those cases, I think that paying close attention to the credit bureau pulls is essential.

Reader Feedback

• What do you think about the Best credit card offers page?  Will it help you with your credit card churns?  Do you have any suggestions for improvement?
• What do you think about the ideas I laid out for churn planning?  Do they make sense?  Do you have any suggestions for improvement?

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If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here

Last week I wrote an analysis of the Delta Reserve credit card.  In that post I pointed out that the Reserve card has an excellent rate of return for daily spend (over 3.4 cents per dollar) if you are a very big spender and can hit the $30K or $60K bonus levels.  That card also has a very steep annual fee ($450) which is offset by various perks.

If you don’t want to go all out with a $450 annual fee, another option is the Platinum Delta SkyMiles credit card which has a $150 annual fee.

What you get for the annual fee (just the highlights):

MQMs and bonus miles:

The first year you have the card, you will be given 5,000 MQMs (Delta Medallion Qualifying Miles) and 20,000 redeemable miles after your first purchase.  Since I’ve argued that the fair trading price for MQMs is about 3 cents each (see How much should you pay for elite qualifying miles), and the fair trading price of redeemable miles is about 1.29 cents, this signup bonus is worth approximately $408.  Since the annual fee is not waved the first year, this amounts to a $258 signup bonus.  Not a great signup bonus if you’re into credit card churning, but its not bad if your purpose is to get the card for its ongoing benefits.  Note that if you do not expect to reach at least bottom level elite status (25,000 MQMs) even with the 5K MQM bonus, then that bonus will not have any value to you, and the total signup bonus value will reduce to $258 (or $108 once you subtract out the annual fee).

Companion Certificate:

After the first year, when you renew the card, you will receive a a free companion certificate.  This will allow you to essentially buy two tickets to and from anywhere in the continental US for the price of one.  These can be used for either coach or first class tickets.  Note two big downsides: the companion does not earn miles or MQMs and you and your companion will not be eligible for upgrades.  I like to use these certificates on regional jets that don’t have first class anyway.  Personally, I value this benefit at about $250.  This benefit alone makes the card worth holding onto even if you have no plans to spend any money with the card.

Priority Boarding and Free Checked Bag

If you have elite status with Delta, these benefits won’t matter to you.  Otherwise, this is a pretty good perk.  Priority boarding will allow you to get on the plane and find overhead bin space for your carry-ons before the bins fill up.  The value of a free checked bag should be obvious.  If you don’t have elite status, I would estimate the value of this perk to be about $75 per year.

Total cost each year (including year 1): $150

Total benefits first year:

• $408 for elites
• $483 for non-elites who will reach elite status
• $333 for non-elites who will not reach elite status
  

Total benefits ongoing years:

• $250 for elites
• $325 for non-elites

So, as you can see, the card pretty much pays for itself with its benefits.  If you value the particular benefits listed above, you might want to seriously consider this card.  Let me stress again, though, if your purpose is to signup for credit cards for their sign-up bonuses, you can do much better.  This card is one to keep for its ongoing benefits.

Benefits from Daily Spend

If you don’t spend a lot on this card, the return rate for using this card is not very good.  You will earn one Delta SkyMile per dollar on most purchases, and two Delta SkyMiles per dollar on Delta purchases.  Compared to several other cards, this is pretty lame.  Where the card shines, though, is if you manage to put exactly $25K or $50K of spend on the card in a year:

Big Spend Benefits

Once you reach $25K in spend in a calendar year, you will be awarded with 10,000 bonus miles and 10,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) which will help you get to the next level of elite status at Delta.  The same benefits kick in again at $50K of spend.  So, if you manage to put exactly $25K or $50K of spending on your card each year, you will earn 1.4 SkyMiles and .4 MQMs per dollar spent.  According to my Fair Trading Prices chart, SkyMiles trade at 1.29 cents each whereas MQMs trade at 3 cents each.  This means that you would earn 1.29 * 1.4 + 3 * .4 = 3 cents of value per dollar spent on the card!  This is a very good rate of return for non-category spend (some cards offer better rates of return for spend within categories such as gas stations, grocery stores, etc.).  Theoretically, you could spend $25K on Amex Gift cards by going through Big Crumbs to earn 1.6% cash back and increase your overall rate of return to about 4.6 cents per dollar!  The more highly you value elite qualifying miles (MQMs), the more attractive this option is likely to be to you.

Conclusion

If you are a frequent Delta flyer and you value annual companion passes, this card is a good one to keep in your wallet or in a drawer.  If you are also a big spender, this card is a strong contender!  The rate of return for big spend is not as good as the Delta Reserve, but it is close.  Personally, I hold both the Delta Reserve card and this Platinum Delta SkyMiles card (the business version).  I concentrate my spend on the Reserve card and keep the Platinum card for the companion pass.  If I manage to max out the Reserve card to $60K of spend, then I’ll consider putting additional spend on the Platinum card, but only if I’m sure that I’ll get to $25K of spend.

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Note: I started writing this post before reading that The Points Guy is considering signing up for this card.  Brian, this one is for you:

At first blush, you would have to be insane to sign up for this card.  It comes with a jaw dropping $450 annual fee which is not waived the first year!  However, if you look a bit closer, you just might be swayed.

What you get for the annual fee (just the highlights):

MQMs:

The first year you have the card, you will be given 10,000 MQMs (Delta Medallion Qualifying Miles) after your first purchase.  Since I’ve argued that the fair trading price for MQMs is about 3 cents each (see How much should you pay for elite qualifying miles), this signup bonus is worth at least $300

Sky Club Access:

Once you have this card, you and two guests can get into any Delta Sky Club.  A Delta Sky Club membership costs between $300 and $450 (depending on your elite level).  Personally, I would never pay for that, though.  So, I would peg this benefit at about $150, but you should really judge for yourself how much it is worth to you.

Companion Certificate:

After the first year, when you renew the card, you receive a a free companion certificate.  This will allow you to essentially buy two tickets to and from anywhere in the continental US for the price of one.  Note two big downsides: the companion does not earn miles or MQMs and you and your companion will not be eligible for upgrades.  I like to use these certificates on regional jets that don’t have first class anyway.  Personally, I value this benefit at about $250.

Priority Upgrades

If you are on the upgrade list on a flight and other frequent fliers have the same status as you (e.g. Silver, Gold, Platinum, or Diamond) and they bought tickets in the same fare class as you, you will jump ahead of them because you hold this card.  This benefit is unlikely to help you very often, but if you fly a lot it will probably be the difference between first class and coach at least once a year.  I’ll call this one a $50 benefit (even though circumstances could make it worth much more).

Total benefits first year: $500
Total benefits ongoing years: $450

So, as you can see, the card pretty much pays for itself with its benefits.  If you value the particular benefits listed above, you might want to seriously consider this card.

Benefits from Daily Spend

If you don’t spend a lot on this card, the benefits are minimal.  You will earn one Delta Skymile per dollar on most purchases, and two Delta Skymiles per dollar on Delta purchases.  Compared to several other cards, this is pretty lame.  Where the card shines, though, is if you manage to put exactly $30K or $60K of spend on the card in a year:

Big Spend Benefits

Once you reach $30K in spend in a calendar year, you will be awarded with 15000 bonus miles and 15000 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) which will help you get to the next level of elite status at Delta.  The same benefits kick in again at $60K of spend.  So, if you manage to put exactly $30K or $60K of spending on your card each year, you will earn 1.5 SkyMiles and .5 MQMs per dollar spent.  According to my Fair Trading Prices chart, SkyMiles trade at 1.29 cents each whereas MQMs trade at 3 cents each.  This means that you would earn 1.29 * 1.5 + 3 * .5 = 3.435 cents of value per dollar spent on the card!  This is really an outstanding rate of return for non-category spend (some cards offer better rates of return for spend within categories such as gas stations, grocery stores, etc.).  Theoretically, you could spend $30K on Amex Gift cards by going through Big Crumbs to earn 1.6% cash back and increase your overall rate of return to about 5 cents per dollar!  The more highly you value elite qualifying miles (MQMs), the more attractive this option is likely to be to you.

Conclusion

If you are a frequent Delta flyer and you value Sky Club access, this card is a good one to keep in your wallet or in a drawer.  If you are also a big spender, this card is a surprisingly strong contender!  Personally, I plan to use tricks for spending a lot of money and getting most of it back in order to spend $60K per year on this card!

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Last week I posted Frequent Miler’s Top 10 ways to spend a lot of money (and get most of it back).  #3 on the list was to pay your taxes by credit card.  And, yesterday, Million Mile Secrets published details about how to do this.  It’s an excellent, well researched, post.  If you’re interested, make sure to also look at the reader comments since there is great information there too. 

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Earning points and miles from credit cards is not free. I’ll explain why.

Almost every major airline and hotel program allows you to earn points or miles by using a rewards credit card. When people get points in this way they tend to think of them as free, but they are not. The reason? By using a points-earning credit card, you are giving up the chance to earn cash back (or the equivalent) at a fixed rate.

There are several credit cards that give a fixed 2% return on all purchases. For example, both the Capital One Venture and the Escape Discover Card give 2% back in the form of travel credit. Even better, if you have a Fidelity account, you may be able to get the Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express Card which gives 2% cash back on all purchases. If you really want to maximize your cash back earnings, you could get a 2% cash back card for basic purchases, and then use a card like the American Express Blue Cash Preferred and earn 3% cash back at gas stations and department stores and a whopping 6% back from grocery store purchases!

While it is possible to earn more than 2% on credit card purchases, I consider 2% to be the benchmark rate for credit card earnings. By juggling cards, as I described above, you can do better than the benchmark, or with a 1% cash back card you can do worse. For example, if you use a 1% cash back card, then with every purchase you effectively lose the additional 1% you would have received from a 2% card! By the same measure, the points you earn from points-based cards cost you 2 cents for every dollar spent on the card. Since most points-based cards give 1 point per dollar spent, this means that most people effectively (and unknowingly) buy points for 2 cents each every time they use their credit card.

Most credit cards have bonus categories that allow the card holder to earn more than one point per dollar spent in those categories. Frequently, the bonus categories are limited to money spent at the particular hotel or airline that co-brands the credit card. Other times there are broad categories such as travel, grocery, or dining that will result in more points. As bonus categories are more frequently used, the cost per dollar of points goes down. In order to estimate the cost of points purchased via credit card use, it is necessary to estimate how much will be spent within such bonus categories. For every person, the true mix will be very different, but for this analysis I took a stab at estimating each common category:

With the chart above, we can now estimate the cost of earning points and miles from credit cards. For this analysis, I’ll examine three popular credit cards and compare them to standard airline branded cards that earn 1 mile per dollar except within their limited category:

Typical Airline Card

Most airline branded credit cards give 2 miles per dollar spent directly through the airline and 1 mile per dollar for all other purchases. If we accept from the chart above that 5% of a cardholder’s spend would be with the airline, then that means that the cardholder would earn, on average, 1.05 miles per dollar. Compared to the 2% cash back alternative, that amounts to buying miles for 1.9 cents each. While that rate is better than buying miles directly from the airline, it is often possible to buy miles for much less. I’m not saying that airline credit cards are a bad deal – they often come with many perks (free bags, priority boarding, etc.) that make them worthwhile. However, you may want to think twice before using them for day to day spend.

Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express

The SPG card gives 2 points per dollar at Starwood hotels , and 1 point per dollar everywhere else. If 2.5% of purchases are made at Starwood properties, then the cardholder would earn, on average, 1.025 points per dollar. This translates to 1.94 cents per point. While this sounds pretty expensive, I’ve found SPG points to be quite valuable when used for hotel redemptions. The interesting thing about this card, though, is that you can transfer the points to airline miles and get a 25% bonus when doing so. For example, if you transfer 20,000 SPG points into American Airlines miles, you will get 25,000 AA miles! So, if we take that into account, the 1.025 points per dollar one earns can become 1.28 miles per dollar. The cost, then, goes down to 1.56 cents per mile. Not bad!

American Express(R) Premier Rewards Gold Card

The Amex Premier Rewards Gold Card gives triple points for airline tickets and double points for gas and groceries. Using the chart above, this means that the cardholder would earn, on average, 1.55 points per dollar. That amounts to buying points for 1.29 cents each. Even better, American Express often runs promos where the transferred points are worth even more. For example, you can often get 1.5 Delta SkyMiles for each Membership Rewards point transferred to Delta. In that case, your miles per dollar earnings increases to 2.33, and the cost for “buying” Delta miles goes down to less than a penny per mile (.86 cents)!

Chase Sapphire^SM Preferred Card

 The Chase Sapphire Preferred gives double points for all travel and dining expenses, and triple points for travel booked through their site. Additionally, cardholders are given an annual 7% bonus on all points earned each calendar year.  This means that the cardholder earns, on average, 1.52 points per dollar. That amounts to buying points for 1.31 cents each. If all else were equal, this is better than the SPG card and about equal to the Amex card (without counting the Amex 1.5x transfer bonus). Of course, all-else is not equal: it can be argued (and has been argued) that the transfer partners available to Ultimate Rewards are much better than the transfer partners available to Amex Membership Rewards. In future posts, I’ll attempt to quantify this difference so that we can make a better apples to apples comparison.

Juggling Cards

In addition to picking the single best card for “buying miles”, it’s possible to bring the cost of miles down further by using multiple cards. Use the Amex Premier Rewards Gold for gas and groceries. Use the Chase Sapphire for dining and all travel expenses, and use the SPG card for everything else. In that way, you will earn, on average, 1.88 points per dollar. If you transfer the earned SPG points to airline miles, and transfer Amex points to miles during a 1.5X transfer promo, and use the Amex card for airfare and dining, the earnings per dollar goes up to 2.62 cents per dollar. This amounts to buying miles for .77 cents each!

Analysis

There are many benefits you can get from credit cards, but if your main goal is to get points and miles you should look carefully at how much those points cost you. There are several non-miles earning credit cards that can give you the equivalent of 2% back, so if you don’t value points and miles you should look seriously at those options. If you do value points and miles, then the earning power of your credit cards should be looked at closely. From the example above, it is clear that juggling cards is the best way to maximize your returns. If that’s too much trouble, however, you’ll still do better using a card like those shown above instead of a standard airline rewards card.

Disclaimer: if you use one of the links above to sign up for a credit card, I will receive a referral fee. I promise however that I only recommend cards that I truly believe offer the best value.